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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 10, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

US President Donald Trump late Thursday forced out the remaining three members of an independent, bipartisan commission that assists state election officials across the country, a move that critics condemned as a “pathetic power grab” ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, were fired, and Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick resigned at the White House’s request, according to ProPublica. The agency, established by Congress more than two decades ago, now lacks leadership and any ability to make decisions, just months before the 2026 elections.

The EAC, as its website states, is “an independent, bipartisan commission whose mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process.” In an executive order last year, Trump ordered the EAC to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements in the federal voter registration process, along with other changes. The president’s effort to impose his policy demands on the EAC was mostly blocked in federal court.

Trump, who has said he wants his administration to “take over” voting nationwide ahead of the 2026 midterms, has since taken other steps that watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers say amount to an attempt to preemptively subvert the coming elections, including a sweeping assault on mail-in voting—which is also facing legal challenges. Legislatively, Trump is pushing Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that experts say would prevent millions of Americans from voting.

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, said Thursday’s EAC firings “are deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”

“These removals leave the agency without leadership and unable to carry out its major responsibilities,” said Waldman. “The guardrails Congress placed on this agency are clear and must be followed: The Election Assistance Commission was designed to be bipartisan with four members, no more than two of which can be from the same political party. The agency cannot make any significant decisions or take any significant actions unless three confirmed commissioners agree. Until bipartisan replacements are confirmed, the agency cannot lawfully make any decisions that affect how Americans vote.”

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said Trump’s termination of EAC commissioners underscores that “he’s scared of the voting power of the American people.”

“This move is another pathetic attempt to sow doubt in our elections, which are safely and expertly run by states and localities,” said Gilbert. “This agency deserves a steady hand and expert leadership. That said, it is important for voters to know that states and localities, not the EAC, run our elections. Even more importantly, it is the voters who decide who takes office.”

The EAC firings came less than two weeks after the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court handed Trump the power to purge independent agencies at will with its Trump v. Slaughter ruling, erasing around 90 years of precedent.

Election law expert Rick Hasen warned in a blog post on Thursday that Trump “could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship.”

“Trump’s first voting-related EO tried to do this, and he was stymied. But that was acting through the commissioners and before the Slaughter case,” Hasen noted. “If he tries anything like this, it will be high-profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer.”

Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said in a statement late Thursday that the EAC purge was “irresponsible and dangerous,” accusing the administration of remaining “dead set on causing chaos for our election officials across this country.”

“This move undermines the integrity of nonpartisan election administration,” Fontes added.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 06, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

The Trump administration has seized at least $8 billion worth of Venezuela’s oil wealth since it overthrew President Nicolás Maduro in January, according to the New York Times.

Now, as Venezuela struggles to cope with a catastrophic pair of earthquakes late last month that killed at least 3,300 people and left tens of thousands more injured and homeless, and 41,000-50,000 people are reported missing, the US is providing just $300 million in humanitarian aid, a small fraction of the money it purloined.

The Associated Press reported on Monday that international rescue teams have begun to pull out as hopes of finding missing loved ones alive dwindle each day after the disaster.

Shortly after deposing Maduro, US President Donald Trump declared that the US “took over Venezuela… and the oil is flowing.”

Economist Francisco Rodriguez has found that during the first quarter of 2026, after Trump overthrew Maduro and the US began expropriating Venezuelan oil, the country experienced the lowest rate of economic growth since 2021, even as oil exports rose.

As Roxanna Vigil, a former senior sanctions policy adviser at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, explained in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations last month, “almost 100 million barrels of oil worth an estimated $8 billion have flowed through a process marked by no transparency and minimal oversight.”

“While the Trump administration has repeatedly framed this control as benefiting both countries, it has not publicly disclosed how much Venezuelan oil it has sold, how much revenue it has collected, or how it has used those funds,” she added.

According to an initial report by the United Nations Development Program, the quakes caused $6.7 billion worth of damage.

Former US Ambassador to Venezuela Jimmy Story credited what he said was a “robust” US effort to provide aid. But he told Reuters that it called into question “the transparency over the oil fund,” and asked, “Will these funds be released for the disaster response?”

The Times noted that the Trump administration’s response to the Venezuela quakes is dwarfed by the humanitarian response to the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, when the US launched a more than $3 billion relief effort and deployed more than 7,000 troops.

Just 900 US troops are on the ground in Venezuela, with another 800 positioned in Puerto Rico and Curaçao to support the operation.

The Times’ Simon Romero, who has reported on earthquakes in both countries, noted that the Haiti earthquake was more destructive, but said:

The parallels between the disasters are also haunting: Pancaked multistory concrete buildings, bodies flooding into overwhelmed morgues, survivors disparaging government responses, and civilians leading desperate rescues of people trapped in the rubble.

Viewed against cityscapes clouded by dust from pulverized structures, the images speak to hollowed-out first responder agencies, generalized impoverishment, and political dysfunction in both Haiti and Venezuela.

Beyond the $8 billion taken out of Venezuela since January, anti-war and human rights groups in the US have urged the Trump administration to lift the economic sanctions that have crippled the Venezuelan government, arguing that they have hobbled the recovery effort.

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) estimated that during just four years, between 2017-20, US sanctions caused the Venezuelan state to lose between $17 billion and $31 billion in revenue.

A more recent report by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research found that between 2017-24, Venezuela suffered an estimated $226 billion in lost oil revenue due to US sanctions, equivalent to 213% of its total gross domestic product.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 10, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

US President Donald Trump late Thursday forced out the remaining three members of an independent, bipartisan commission that assists state election officials across the country, a move that critics condemned as a “pathetic power grab” ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, were fired, and Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick resigned at the White House’s request, according to ProPublica. The agency, established by Congress more than two decades ago, now lacks leadership and any ability to make decisions, just months before the 2026 elections.

The EAC, as its website states, is “an independent, bipartisan commission whose mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process.” In an executive order last year, Trump ordered the EAC to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements in the federal voter registration process, along with other changes. The president’s effort to impose his policy demands on the EAC was mostly blocked in federal court.

Trump, who has said he wants his administration to “take over” voting nationwide ahead of the 2026 midterms, has since taken other steps that watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers say amount to an attempt to preemptively subvert the coming elections, including a sweeping assault on mail-in voting—which is also facing legal challenges. Legislatively, Trump is pushing Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that experts say would prevent millions of Americans from voting.

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, said Thursday’s EAC firings “are deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”

“These removals leave the agency without leadership and unable to carry out its major responsibilities,” said Waldman. “The guardrails Congress placed on this agency are clear and must be followed: The Election Assistance Commission was designed to be bipartisan with four members, no more than two of which can be from the same political party. The agency cannot make any significant decisions or take any significant actions unless three confirmed commissioners agree. Until bipartisan replacements are confirmed, the agency cannot lawfully make any decisions that affect how Americans vote.”

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said Trump’s termination of EAC commissioners underscores that “he’s scared of the voting power of the American people.”

“This move is another pathetic attempt to sow doubt in our elections, which are safely and expertly run by states and localities,” said Gilbert. “This agency deserves a steady hand and expert leadership. That said, it is important for voters to know that states and localities, not the EAC, run our elections. Even more importantly, it is the voters who decide who takes office.”

The EAC firings came less than two weeks after the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court handed Trump the power to purge independent agencies at will with its Trump v. Slaughter ruling, erasing around 90 years of precedent.

Election law expert Rick Hasen warned in a blog post on Thursday that Trump “could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship.”

“Trump’s first voting-related EO tried to do this, and he was stymied. But that was acting through the commissioners and before the Slaughter case,” Hasen noted. “If he tries anything like this, it will be high-profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer.”

Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said in a statement late Thursday that the EAC purge was “irresponsible and dangerous,” accusing the administration of remaining “dead set on causing chaos for our election officials across this country.”

“This move undermines the integrity of nonpartisan election administration,” Fontes added.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 06, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

The Trump administration has seized at least $8 billion worth of Venezuela’s oil wealth since it overthrew President Nicolás Maduro in January, according to the New York Times.

Now, as Venezuela struggles to cope with a catastrophic pair of earthquakes late last month that killed at least 3,300 people and left tens of thousands more injured and homeless, and 41,000-50,000 people are reported missing, the US is providing just $300 million in humanitarian aid, a small fraction of the money it purloined.

The Associated Press reported on Monday that international rescue teams have begun to pull out as hopes of finding missing loved ones alive dwindle each day after the disaster.

Shortly after deposing Maduro, US President Donald Trump declared that the US “took over Venezuela… and the oil is flowing.”

Economist Francisco Rodriguez has found that during the first quarter of 2026, after Trump overthrew Maduro and the US began expropriating Venezuelan oil, the country experienced the lowest rate of economic growth since 2021, even as oil exports rose.

As Roxanna Vigil, a former senior sanctions policy adviser at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, explained in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations last month, “almost 100 million barrels of oil worth an estimated $8 billion have flowed through a process marked by no transparency and minimal oversight.”

“While the Trump administration has repeatedly framed this control as benefiting both countries, it has not publicly disclosed how much Venezuelan oil it has sold, how much revenue it has collected, or how it has used those funds,” she added.

According to an initial report by the United Nations Development Program, the quakes caused $6.7 billion worth of damage.

Former US Ambassador to Venezuela Jimmy Story credited what he said was a “robust” US effort to provide aid. But he told Reuters that it called into question “the transparency over the oil fund,” and asked, “Will these funds be released for the disaster response?”

The Times noted that the Trump administration’s response to the Venezuela quakes is dwarfed by the humanitarian response to the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, when the US launched a more than $3 billion relief effort and deployed more than 7,000 troops.

Just 900 US troops are on the ground in Venezuela, with another 800 positioned in Puerto Rico and Curaçao to support the operation.

The Times’ Simon Romero, who has reported on earthquakes in both countries, noted that the Haiti earthquake was more destructive, but said:

The parallels between the disasters are also haunting: Pancaked multistory concrete buildings, bodies flooding into overwhelmed morgues, survivors disparaging government responses, and civilians leading desperate rescues of people trapped in the rubble.

Viewed against cityscapes clouded by dust from pulverized structures, the images speak to hollowed-out first responder agencies, generalized impoverishment, and political dysfunction in both Haiti and Venezuela.

Beyond the $8 billion taken out of Venezuela since January, anti-war and human rights groups in the US have urged the Trump administration to lift the economic sanctions that have crippled the Venezuelan government, arguing that they have hobbled the recovery effort.

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) estimated that during just four years, between 2017-20, US sanctions caused the Venezuelan state to lose between $17 billion and $31 billion in revenue.

A more recent report by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research found that between 2017-24, Venezuela suffered an estimated $226 billion in lost oil revenue due to US sanctions, equivalent to 213% of its total gross domestic product.